Menu

Taieri Gorge Railway in Photos

Date: May 21, 2012

Author: Ali

Since Andy was deprived of his scenic train to Christchurch when we changed our plans, he was happy to find the Taieri Gorge Railway in Dunedin. It’s a scenic train ride through the valleys and mountains near Dunedin, which you can take one way or, more popular, round trip, and it makes for a relaxing afternoon enjoying the scenery. The train does make a few stops for pictures, but I took tons from the train while it was moving.

For more information on the Taieri Gorge Railway, please visit their website here.

New Zealand train rides are legendary. They’re right up there with that train in Canada that spans the length of the country and some of the more adventurous train rides that exist in South America. I’m glad that Andy loved it. I think I would have loved it too had I been there with all that greenery to look out at.

Next time you’re in our part of the world again, see if you can put Christchurch back on your itinerary. Those guys have really suffered a lot for no good reason and they could do with the patronage and the exposure that your blog provides. Only last week they had another major earthquake above 5.0 . Thankfully nobody hurt and no major damage, just a few thousand people having to be evacuated out of buildings in the middle of the day.

I’m starting to like trains more and more now that I live in Europe, and especially since Andy likes them so much so we take them often. You’re right, I feel awful about how much the earthquakes have affected Christchurch, and we would probably go there if we end up in New Zealand again. I’ve heard good things about the city, it just didn’t seem like a good idea to visit *while* they were having earthquakes in December. I hadn’t heard about the one from last week, glad it was a smaller one at least.

There is a beautiful train that Earl took in Switzerland when he did his journey there last year on a Eurail ticket. It was business class with leather seats and upholstery. Everything was just like you would expect in the business class section of a plane. I forget where Earl journeyed on this train but if you have a look at his blog you’ll be able to find it. You’re so lucky to be in Europe where they have an awesome train system. Where I live here in Morwell the trains run to Melbourne once every hour and when the weather is severe they don’t run at all and you have to take a replacement but which makes a two hour journey at least three hours. That’s never fun.

As for Christchurch, I’m glad you didn’t go in December because they had a tonne of big aftershocks in the days and weeks after the big one. Based on the number of earthquakes they’ve been having I suspect it’s going to be quite some time before things settle down.